It really is a thing of beauty.
Category: Apple History
Apple celebrates 30 years of Mac⇢
With all the retrospectives I expected today, I didn’t think we’d see one from Apple itself.
‘The Mac keeps going forever’⇢
Jason Snell:
The Mac’s path over the last 30 years has hardly been a straight one. Under the surface, the operating system that runs it is completely different from the original, thanks to Apple’s acquisition of Next (and, oh yeah, Steve Jobs) in 1996. It debuted as a desktop computer, and now more than two-thirds of all Macs are laptops.
In his article, Snell interviewed several Apple executives, including Bud Tribble, Apple’s Vice President of Software Technology. Tibble worked on the original Macintosh team, and said:
Leading the Way⇢
The 1980s were a weird time for tech companies.
Apple’s Evolving PR Boilerplate
One of the more interesting debates in the nerd community is around how Apple views itself. Is it a software company that happens to make hardware? Is it a device manufacturer that also offers sort of crappy cloud services? Is it all just a ruse to sell music and apps?
Instead of making things up as we go, I think Apple can speak for itself — and as it just so happens, it has.
On Progress
I came across my Clamshell iBook G3 this weekend, and spent some time with it today. It now dual boots OS 9 and 10.0. (The former is way faster than the latter.)
OS X Cheetah is rough, and is showing its age more than ever. That said, OS 9 is super dead at this point, too.
After fiddling with it for a bit snapped this photo of the iBook with my 13-inch MacBook Air:
ADB, the Epitome of Early Apple⇢
Thomas Brand:
ADB epitomizes the Woz-era Apple of the 1970s and 80s, “intended to be as simple to use as possible, while still being inexpensive to implement.” ADB may not be considered elegant when compared to modern connections like Lightening or USB, but it was designed to meet the customer’s basic needs at a lower cost. A philosophy foreign to the Apple we have today.
Future Classics: the white iPhone 4
This is the first post in my new series “Future Classics,” in which I try to guess what current-era Apple products may become collectable in the future.
It’s hard to gauge the collectibility of iOS devices. While certain devices — like the original, 4 GB iPhone — may prove to be rare in the future, these devices are far more consumable than desktop or notebook computers.
That said, if there’s any iOS device to date that will be collectible in the future besides the original iPhone, my money is on the white iPhone 4.
Apple at CES⇢
1992 was a very different time, as Jon Turi at Engadget reminds us:
At the 1992 Winter CES, Sculley gave a keynote speech that delved into the future of digital devices. He offered a new theme for the ’90s that involved the “reorganization of work,” where technology would help us break old habits, increase productivity and redefine the workplace. The key to that shift? The personal digital assistant (PDA), a successor to his 1987 “knowledge navigator” concept that would combine applications, multimedia and network access, and, according to Sculley, lead to a trillion dollar market by the next decade. He didn’t reveal any Apple products matching the description that year, but he was setting the stage for the MessagePad, a device positioned as the next big thing.
On Puma⇢
While the Mac world is worked up about OS X Mavericks, Thomas Brand looks back at Mac OS X 10.1.
The Homebrew Computer Club Reunion⇢
Andrew Webster:
Despite its humble name, the Homebrew Computer Club holds a special place in computing history. Started in 1975, the club was a place where hackers and hobbyists could get together, and it attracted some of the brightest minds in the industry, from Steve Wozniak to Ted Nelson. It’s the place where Wozniak and Steve Jobs showed off the prototype for the Apple–1 for the very first time. Now, the old gang is getting back together, with a little help from Kickstarter. The group has successfully funded a reunion — raising more than $16,000 through the crowdfunding service — that will take place on November 11th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Iconic⇢
Any regular reader of 512 will know that I’m a huge fan of Apple history. From old software to weird, now-obsolete hardware, I find the company’s past to be fascinating.
Back in April, I got to visit the Apple Pop-Up Museum, getting a behind-the-scenes tour of what would prove to be a successful — yet sadly temporary — look back at the Apple of old.
Enter Iconic. Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation is a hardcover, 330 page book that walks readers through 35 years of Apple history using high-resolution, stunning product photography. With chapters on Desktops, Portables, Peripherals, iDevices, Prototypes and Packaging, there’s something for everyone. Editor Jonathan Zufi’s love and care shines through on every page.